Attention all businesswomen and businessmen! Do you have a strong online presence for your business? Do you have an engaging website that sells your products and/or services? Do you have an email system and ezines that keep you in the forefront of your clients’ minds?
Or are you painting herds of bison on the walls of your cave, wishing that internet marketing and technology would fall off the face of the earth? (Okay, maybe you aren’t living in a cave and painting bison on the walls, but you do need to stay current and develop a strong online presence or you’ll go out of business quickly.)
Let me make your life a lot easier by explaining why you need an integrated online payment shopping cart, email system, and client database. I know from experience that it can be a challenge to find an affordable, user-friendly shopping cart that lets you manage all your contacts, send out your email newsletter, process people’s purchases in a secure online environment, AND set up an affiliate program, all in one integrated system.
Many business owners make the mistake of getting a separate shopping cart and a separate contact management/email newsletter system. However, you need something that can help you knock down all the pins in your alley, even after you’ve downed a couple of pina coladas with your posse of pals.
Here’s what an integrated shopping cart will do for you:
* You can divide your email list into segments. You’ll have the ability to separate customers and subscribers into specialized groups based on which of your offerings they’re most interested in, and you can create targeted marketing campaigns for your products or services. In addition, you can create specific AutoResponders. (ARs are a series of email messages you create to stay in touch with prospects and clients and also upsell other items).
* A good shopping cart system will personalize these AutoResponders with the names, etc. of the people in your database and will let you send emails out at specific time intervals. The beauty of ARs is that once they are done, the series is automated (hence the “auto” in AutoResponder) and it will look like you wrote each email from scratch to just one specific recipient. This helps you give the personal touch (without extra time or effort!) to your clients and prospects and helps build your relationships. And we all know, good relationships lead to good sales.
* Another benefit of an integrated shopping cart is that you can upsell with it. If you’ve forgotten the sales lingo, an upsell is the “Wanna biggie size that combo?” of your business. In an upsell, you sell more of the same products or something additional to your customer. Upselling lets you take advantage of your client’s desire to get the most for their money and let’s you make not one but multiple sales simultaneously. (Now what fool would ignore this valuable feature?)
* With your integrated cart, you can also effortlessly notify your customers of special promotions, items on sale, and bundled packages, or just give them plain and simple recommendations for other products you think they would like. Hey, if they bought from you once, you can safely assume that they like (or at least want) what you have to offer. Don’t deny them the opportunity to shop ’til they drop—on YOUR website of course!
* An integrated shopping cart will also make it easy for you to set up an affiliate program. You can sit back and let other businesses sell your wares and earn a commission. The cart will do all the tracking since each affiliate will have a special link for their respective customers. What’s the power in having an affiliate program? You aren’t a sales force of one when you have other business owners selling your stuff around the clock. (And don’t you even THINK about tracking affiliate purchases without an integrated shopping cart! You’ll lose your hair–and your mind!)
* With an integrated shopping cart system, you can see what’s really going on using analytics and reports. Information, statistics, and graphs are available to you in an understandable, streamlined format. (Don’t worry, it won’t be hieroglyphics) For example, you can obtain information on what your clients have purchased, which products are most popular, and who is reading your ezines or unsubscribing. (Yes, I’m aware that this may feel like internet voyeurism at its finest, but it lets you know who your fans are and what they care about. This, in turn, enables you to do market research and devise new–and popular–offerings!)
* An integrated shopping cart system can improve your deliverability rate. Let me explain: A high deliverability rate means your precious emails are actually going to REACH their destination instead of rotting in the deadly spam folder from hell. A good integrated shopping cart program will whitelist the emails you send due to the company’s affiliation with big email servers such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The fabulous outcome for you and your business venture? Your email messages and ezines will have a higher likelihood of being delivered to your clients, and you can sell more!
* A great shopping cart will make your e-commerce activities simpler and easier. Your integrated shopping cart and email database will be like the safety rudders on a bowling alley that help you score a strike even if you suck. (This feature of the au courant bowling alley is a saving grace for enthusiastic gutterball-doomed bowlers, like me.)
* Your integrated shopping cart and email system should be simple to use, centralized, and customizable. That way you won’t have to transfer information and go in and out of multiple systems, plus you will keep your brand consistent. You want your shopping cart to have the look, feel, and user-friendliness of the rest of your site or you won’t look professional. (Yep, you don’t need to change your bowling shirt every time it’s your turn to rock and roll. if you’re always varying your league’s name and colors, you won’t be recognized as the Top Dogs in your neighborhood alley!)
* An integrated cart system can be linked to your website, blog, or other online outlets with a simple no-hype hyperlink. (It’s that easy!) Having a do-able way to connect the cart to all of your online outlets will save you a lot of time as well as loss of hair. (Now you can use that Rogaine budget to join a bowling league– and grab a couple of preliminary lessons and your own glossy vinyl bag along the way.)
In bowling, you try to hit as many pins as you can with one ball, correct? (I guess you figured out that my next book will be Bowling for Dummies since I am bowling-obssessed.) In an integrated shopping cart and email database, you knock out all of the following at once: 1) You save the money you’d spend on multiple systems and are able to easily sell your clients and prospects exactly what appeals to them; 2) You save time and frustration because you don’t have to coordinate multiple systems plus you don’t have to recreate the wheel every time you send out an email; 3) You lessen your web master’s workload, and thus save time and money. (Would you rather have a surly Gutter-Bowler or a Double-Striker on your team?)
Don’t let a separate email system, client database, and online payment shopping cart corner you in a dark alley. (Love those double entendres…) Score an integrated system and you can be the Kingpin (or Queenpin!) of your business success with a powerful online presence and great internet sales.
Dr. Barnsley Brown is a speaker and coach who specializes in strategic marketing for small business owners. Want to know which integrated online payment shopping cart she swears by and has used for years in her business, Spirited Solutions? Try it for thirty days (free!) here: http://bit.ly/bestcartforyou